Christchurch on the eve of the anniversary
Six years from the deadly mass shooting, Christchurch was host to a public talk on "Race Marxism" and a disrupted Pride event
On March 14 Muslim worshipers gathered at Al Noor Masjid on Deans Avenue for Yawm al-Jum'ah, the Friday prayers. It was the eve of the sixth anniversary of an act of terrorism, at that same mosque and also the Linwood Islamic Center, in which 51 people were murdered, with dozens more injured. Many of those attending were survivors, and family members of the deceased.
Three kilometres away, on the other side of Hagley Park, the Free Speech Union held a members social, giving their members the opportunity to meet with James Lindsay before a public event where he would be speaking. This was the final event in a speaking tour platforming Lindsay, the author of ‘Race Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Practice’, and a man described by Salon.com as an “intellectual leader of the far right”.
Christchurch celebrates pride month in March. Increased security measures following violent disruptions to events in Auckland meant that some events had been adapted or postponed but a ‘spiritual event’, held in memory of lost community members, went ahead on the 14th. As attendees were deep in meditation, a group of men broke into the space they were using and filmed them as they chanted homophobic slurs. They vandalised rainbow stickers on cars outside on their way out.
“There's no rationalisation of this, even in their twisted worldview”, Jennifer Shields, president of The Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA) posted on Bluesky. “There are no kids to "protect" at a circle on a Friday evening. This is a continuation of their attempts to push us out of public life - and to try [to] stop us finding community altogether.”
Connecting these events, happening around the city is the spread of far-right conspiracy theories that continues unabated six years after New Zealand’s most deadly mass shooting. James Lindsey has called Critical Race Theory “just the tip of a 100-year long spear to infiltrate the United States with Marxist ideology.'" This conspiracy theory, known as ‘cultural Marxism’, posits that there is an attempt to undermine western civilisation by Marxist theorists. In an episode of his podcast entitled "Groomer Schools 1: The Long Cultural Marxist History of Sex Education," Lindsay argued that sex-ed classes aren't "just a fluke of our weird and increasingly degenerate times" but actually "a long-purposed Marxist project reaching back into the early 20th century." (Lindsay has also been credited with helping popularise the term “groomer” as a slur for the LGBT+ community).
While the Free Speech Union ostensibly exists to protect the right to speak free from government censorship, there is a noticeable pattern in the speakers that the group spends their time, energy, and often money, getting a platform. Last year they supported a speaking tour by anti-transgender commentator Graham Linham, and in the midst of Lindsey’s tour, it was reported that the group had lobbied the associate immigration minister to allow right-wing commentator Candace Owens a work visa to come to New Zealand (Owens was automatically denied a work visa for New Zealand after being denied entry into Australia). One of their current campaigns is against the Christchurch Call, the effort to prevent the spread of terrorist content online after the mosque shooting, which they claim has become a threat to free speech.
“We’re thrilled to host Dr. James Lindsay on tour next month” read a post on the Free Speech Union’s Facebook page, describing him as “A leading voice on the dangers of critical theories and rising authoritarianism”. At the Wellington event with Lindsay, he appeared on a panel with William McGimpsey to debate what Lindsay has called “the woke right”, which actually describes what is more typically referred to as the “alt-right”. Describing this concept, Lindsay gives examples such as Nick Furentes' America First Movement and others he describes as proto-Fascists, including those influenced by Julius Evola, who want to see an American Franco. “One of the reasons woke right might be the right term for these people…it’s almost impossible to tell when they’re serious…we see an awful lot of post-modern detached indifference”.
This seems an enormous stretch made to allow himself to apply the term “woke” to label the section of the far-right he wants to distance himself from, and in an example of “the worst person you know made a great point” McGimpsey countered with “If James means the alt right, dissident right, or online right, he should just use one of these existing terms rather than coining something new. Calling them “woke” is confusing and I think inaccurate”. McGimpsey, a former employee of the Free Speech Union, claims that the groups Lindsay calls the “woke right” are “right about many things, particularly wokeness itself”. McGimpsey is a proponent of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, the belief there is a deliberate attempt to “replace” white populations with people of colour. He frequently posts “Great replacement updates” of migration statistics to X and has discussed the concept on the Reality Check Radio show The Dialogue. Talking about a human rights commission case against him being dropped in a 2024 episode, he declared
“It means everyone else can start talking about the Great Replacement, too. So I would invite everyone to do that. I actually thought about maybe I should take my own case. I should put my own case into the Human Rights Commission about, rather than people talking about the Great Replacement being bad, I should put a case in saying actually passing laws and policies that create the Great Replacement is bad, and see what the Human Rights Commission says about that.”
The Great Replacement conspiracy theory was the primary inspiration for the Christchurch shooter, to the point that he titled his manifesto after it.
Speaking at an event in Christchurch on March 15, marking the sixth anniversary of the shooting, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon remarked "As we reflect on this day we must also confront the forces that led to this tragedy. Islamophobia - like all forms of hatred - has absolutely no place in New Zealand, and it is our duty to challenge it wherever it appears, whether it's in words, policies or in the silence that allows prejudice to fester,"
Luxon needs to be challenged on this point. A year ago, he was asked about ministers in his government appearing on Reality Check Radio, and if this was lending legitimacy to a platform that regularly promoted conspiracy theories. He responded saying he wanted ministers to be “available to as many media outlets” as possible.” Adding “You do not want to see group-think emerge. It’s actually very important that [interviews] happen,”
His government also ended funding for He Whenua Tarikura, the research center founded following the royal commission of inquiry into the 2019 shooting, in the name of cost cutting. "The $2m the government saves by cutting this research will almost certainly increase the risk of significant loss of innocent life in vulnerable communities at the hands of extremists," a spokesperson for the center told RNZ at the time. It’s worth noting the government is also looking at rolling back changes to the arms act passed following the shooting.
Luxon has also indicated he is open to adopting some of the “anti-woke” policies of NZ First, who are putting forward legislation aiming to end "woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets" in the public sector. "I'd just say, when we took the keys to the place [government], it was pretty woke”, he told RNZ.
Given that opposing “wokeness” has become the socially acceptable way to signal opposition to multiculturalism, immigration, and acceptance of LGBT+ people, Luxon’s words on the anniversary of the shooting ring hollow. To come to Christchurch and tell his audience that hatred has “absolutely no place in New Zealand” the day after the city was host to a public talk on “Race Marxism” and the LGBT+ community experienced another attack, actually borders on offensive.
Although the Free Speech Union appear to be using the concept of free speech as little more than a veneer for being, in practice, an event management company for far-right and anti-LGBT+ speakers, there are legitimate debates to be had about how we balance the right to free speech with the rights of marginalised communities to safety. But New Zealand’s current government is stifling that debate by removing a major funding source for research into the far-right (a national debate, if done properly, requires an informed public) and allowing themselves to become caught up in culture wars around “wokeness”. This is the very opposite of challenging the silence that allows prejudice to fester.
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